I've heard that the magic bullet is a great way to make baby food - the regular one the special baby one is not needed. We had a kidco and it did fine.

We kinda skipped-ish the baby food stage. With breastmilk being the primary food "real" food was only an after thought for quite some time. We started 6-7 months and maybe had a consistent single meal every day a few months later.

Though I ended up making some purees we also tried to go the "real food" route and gave things softened that he can pick up, like banana and soften carrots, apples, etc. I can't for the life of me remember what the practice of skipping baby food is, but it has a group of followers.